Apropos of One Untruth

(LETTER TO THE EDITORS)

Published:PravdaNo. 136, June 15, 1913.

      Signed:V. Ilyin.

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 19,

      pages233-234.Translated:The Late George HannaTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Weshould have welcomed, from all points of view, the appearance of
L. Martov’s articles inLuch, promising an analysis of the
question of “the tactical essence of the present dispute”, if the very
first article had not contained a blatant untruth. My words to the effect
that the dispute with the liquidators had nothing to do with the
organisational
			       question[1]were declared to be “unexpected” by L. Martov. “Just look at this!” he
exclaimed. “All of a sudden, with the help of God, we have a change”, and
so on.

YetL. Martov knows full well that there has been no change at all,
that nothing whatever unexpected has happened. In May 1910, over three
years ago, I wrote in a Paris publication, which Martov knows quite well,
“about a group of legalist-independents” (the ideas ofNasha
ZaryaandVozrozhdeniye) and said that it had “definitely
rallied together and definitely broken with the
			      Party”.[2]

Itis obvious that here, too, the dispute does not concern the
organisational question (howto organise the Party?) but the
questionof the existenceof the Party, of the secession of the
liquidators from the Party, of their complete breakaway from the
Party. Martov must realise that this is not a dispute on the question of
organisation.

InOctober 1911, in a publication equally well known to Martov, signed
also by me, it was said: “In reality, it is by no means the organisational
question that is now in the forefront”, but of the “existence”
of the
			       Party.[3]

Theaffairs of the liquidators must be in a bad way if Martov, to evade
an examination of the Party’s precise decisions, is telling fairy-tales and
publishing a blatant untruth.

[1]Seep. 109 of this volume.—Ed.

[2]Seepresent edition, Vol. 16, p. 244.—Ed.

[3]Seepresent edition, Vol. 17. p. 260.—Ed.